ARC Review: Imitation (Clone Chronicles #1)

Imitation (Clone Chronicles #1) by Heather Hildenbrand

Publisher: Alloy Entertainment (Powered by Amazon), 2014

272 pages, kindle edition

Source: Netgalley

Genre: Young Adult, Science, Dystopia, Romance, Fantasy

Links: Goodreads | Amazon

Synopsis:

Everyone is exactly like me. There is no one like me.

Ven wrestles with these contradicting truths every day. A clone of wealthy eighteen-year-old Raven Rogen, Ven knows everything about the girl she was created to serve: the clothes she wears, the boys she loves, the friends she loves to hate. Yet she’s never met the Authentic Raven face-to-face. Imitations like Ven only get to leave the lab when they’re needed—to replace a dead Authentic, donate an organ, or complete a specific mission. And Raven has never needed Ven . . . until now.

When there is an attack on Raven’s life, Ven is thrust into the real world, posing as Raven to draw out the people who tried to harm her. But as Ven dives deeper into Raven’s world, she begins to question everything she was ever told. She exists for Raven, but is she prepared to sacrifice herself for a girl she’s never met?

My Review:

Ven was made as a clone of Raven Rogen. She’s trained to know the details of Raven’s life. But she’s not Raven. I think the stark contrast of the real Raven and Ven is supposed to get the reader to like Ven even more. That just didn’t work for me. I mean, could Raven really be that shallow and conniving? Maybe I just can’t buy the whole nature vs nurture debate within the book. Since Ven is Raven, I don’t think that she is so much an angel to Raven’s devil.

Oh, and there’s insta-love. What I hate more than insta-love, is insta-love that I don’t buy. The relationship between Ven and Linc doesn’t seem genuine. What it does seem is obvious and predictable. I like romance to be exciting and new. I found myself just groaning and trying to see when the real story was going to start moving on to something interesting when Ven and Linc were together.

The story in itself started out interesting. I like conspiracies. I like seeing how far and how twisted everything gets in these types of books. Unfortunately towards the end it became pretty predictable as to what was going on. The mystery of who was good/bad and what was going to happen was lost. I was pretty sad because the book started out strong.

My Rating: